Pomegranate Health
Welcome to Pomegranate Health, a podcast about the culture of medicine. You’ll hear clinicians, academics and advocates discuss some big questions; How can one make difficult clinical and ethical decisions free from bias? How can communication with patients and peers be improved? How can healthcare delivery be made more equitable and efficient?
This is also the home of IMJ On-Air, where authors of the College's Internal Medicine Journal present their work. Expert advice on the current best standards for your practice.
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At each page there is a MyCPD link for Fellows to log credits for participating in educational activity. Please continue the discussion in the comments section below each episode.
Latest episodes
Ep82: Coming back from Burnout—Congress 2022
At Congress 2022 physicians shared the dramatic adversities that had forced them to take charge and rethink their roles in medicine. Burnout should be considered not as a mental health condition but as an occupational disorder that requires collective responsibility.
Ep81: Advocacy from the Top
This episode features two physicians who took advocacy to the next level and ran for Federal Parliament. They explain the the process of getting health policy heard and how to push it through the Canberra machine and onto the political agenda.
Ep80: Healthcare in a Volatile Climate
Australia will warm by more than three degrees by the end of the century with a direct impact on heat-related morbidity. It will also experience more frequent natural disasters and the RACP is calling for national coordination to help the health care system adapt.
Ep79: Melanoma vs the Double-Edged Sword
Immunotherapy has revolutionised care for patients with advanced melanoma but it’s not possible to identify responders in advance. In this podcast we explore the challenging conversations with patients around expectations for prognosis and some of the serious toxicities. We also discuss how the risk-benefit equation changes for melanomas diagnosed at an earlier stage.
Ep78: The Advocate’s Journey
The three word mission statement of the RACP is Educate - Advocate – Innovate. In this podcast we hear from passionate physicians who have taken up a public health cause. Also we learn how the College can help to develop policies around such issues and advocate for them to those in power.
Ep77: Deciding with Children
When can a child be considered to have autonomy to make healthcare decisions for themselves? How should responsibility for difficult decisions be shared between the patients, the parents and clinicians? And is it possible to minimise the moral injury when the wishes of the patient need to be over-ruled?
Ep76: Making Amends- Medical Injury Part 3
In Australia, litigation is the only way for victims to get financial compensation for the medical injury. New Zealand, by contrast, operates a no-fault scheme where the costs of hardship and ongoing care are born by the government for many harms incurred in healthcare. We discuss the advantages this system has but also at some of the unresolved issues.
Ep75: Feeling Guilty- Medical Injury Part 2
Perhaps the greatest barrier to incident disclosure is culture of medicine itself. This podcast explores the guilt that can come about from having caused harm, and the cognitive dissonance this creates in one’s professional identity as a healer.
Ep74: Saying Sorry- Medical Injury Part 1
Medical injury occurs at a rate of about 12 per cent of admissions but is often not disclosed to patients or their families. This podcast explores why practitioners may be fearful of admitting to errors and how victims want the health system to make amends.
Ep73: Communicating a Pandemic
There are many layers of public health interventions that can reduce the rate of transmission of the novel coronavirus but you need you need the community on board to make a significant impact. In this podcast we discuss the challenges and strategies around messaging to the community during a time of such high anxiety.